Appointing a manager is the most important decision a football club must make. It not only determines how your team performs on the field, but also sets the tone for the entire institution, both inside the building and in what it projects to the outside world.
Nobody expects clubs to always get it RIGHT when choosing managers. Football clubs are not always known for their foresight and clear strategic thinking. But at a minimum, we expect them to be able to hire someone. If you’re a major global brand capable of filling stadiums and bringing in millions in sponsorship deals, how difficult can it be to find someone to take a well-paid job as a public face?
And yet the strange reality of elite football in 2024 – richer and more powerful than ever – is that clubs are finding it increasingly difficult to appoint the right person. Everywhere they turn, they encounter dead ends. This is the time of year when teams are trying to recruit a manager or head coach to guide them through next season and beyond. In theory, this should be a period of creativity and movement, after a long period of relative stagnation in Europe’s biggest teams.
But instead, it seems like the coaching market is somehow broken. As if the harvest had failed or the production line conveyor belt had jammed, and there were suddenly no new potential head coaches coming in. Teams that thought they could enter the market and find themselves overwhelmed by an abundance of choices ended up finding nothing they liked.
This seems somewhat shocking, at odds with football’s era of abundance, with our perception of its big clubs as giants who only need to snap their fingers to bring in whoever they want.
Just look at the example this week of Bayern Munich.
Since it was decided in February that Thomas Tuchel would leave at the end of the season, they have spoken to Julian Nagelsmann, who Tuchel replaced at Bayern in March last year, only for Nagelsmann to decide to stay with the German national team. They then spoke to Ralf Rangnick, who decided to stay with the Austrian national team.
Suddenly, Bayern, six times European champion, winner of 11 consecutive Bundesliga titles before this season, giant in every way, no longer knows where to turn next. Even though their team is trying to qualify for the Champions League final next month under Tuchel.
Or take another club of similar size: Barcelona.
At the end of January, Xavi announced that this season would be his last as coach. But there was never a real consensus on who would replace him this summer, and the name most commonly associated with the position was Rafael Marquez, the former Barcelona and Mexico central defender who coached Barcelona Atletic, l The reserve team of the club which plays in the Spanish third division, since July 2022.
It would have been a gamble to say the least, as this is his first senior management position. Club president Joan Laporta has always maintained that he wants to convince Xavi to change his mind and stay, and, late last month, Xavi confirmed that he will ultimately be there next season.
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You may notice here that neither Bayern nor Barcelona have been particularly well-run clubs in recent years and that the center of gravity of European football has been shifted by the broadcast wealth of the Premier League.
Maybe, but even in England, it doesn’t seem like management stars are lining up to come work here this summer. That period in late 2015 and 2016, when Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte all signed for Premier League clubs, seems very long ago.
Liverpool have recently had a unique challenge in finding a successor to Klopp and of course, it is impossible to directly replace someone like him. They appear to have opted for Arne Slot, who has an impressive track record with Feyenoord in the Netherlands and appears to have the right character and approach for the job. But he would not arrive with the same known profile as Klopp nine years ago, having won two Bundesliga titles and the DFB-Pokal (Germany’s FA Cup) and also taking Dortmund to the Champions League final at over the previous five seasons. Slot would arrive at Anfield with much more to prove.
We don’t yet know what Manchester United will do about Erik ten Hag, but with his side heading for a Premier League spot between sixth and eighth, he hasn’t exactly made a compelling case to stay.
And yet United’s new hierarchy will be acutely aware of how difficult it is to appoint a manager and how few good options are available. It is telling that the name they have been most linked with, England manager Gareth Southgate, made his name in international football rather than at club level. Likewise, Chelsea will know that if they part ways with Mauricio Pochettino at the end of their first season, they will not replace him with anyone, as has been proven.
Obviously, this is not just a simple count. There is no reason why the number of available managers/head coaches should be any less than it has ever been. There are as many clubs as there ever were. There is a pool of unemployed managers and this has not been completely dried up by the less stressful alternative of working in television.
In fact, we are facing not a shortage of managers, but a shortage of type of managers who elite clubs believe can work for them. It’s not that the shelves are empty, but that buyers don’t like what they see. Rigor does not imply scarcity.
Ultimately, it has to do with stratification, with the fact that the richest teams now play an almost different sport from the rest. It used to be that big clubs would scour the landscape and see dozens of candidates who they thought could move to the next level. But now these teams are so elevated relative to everyone else in the game that they can barely distinguish who is operating there.
The gap between managing a good team and managing a superclub is now bigger than it has ever been. Judging who can take that step has become one of the hardest things to do in football. And with superclubs monopolizing trophies in the major leagues, there are far fewer candidates for elevation than ever before.
The quickest route is to have been a player at a big club, and Mikel Arteta’s success at Arsenal since his appointment in 2019 will surely inspire the next decade of copycats, just like that of his mentor Guardiola at Barcelona 11 years ago.
This is why the example of Xabi Alonso is so instructive.
By winning the Bundesliga title this season, with a possible Europa League and Pokal treble to follow in the coming weeks, he has clearly demonstrated that he can succeed at the top. The fact that he played for Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern for a total of 14 years suggests that he would also return straight to superclub life. If Alonso had left Bayer Leverkusen this summer, he could have solved a problem at Bayern or Liverpool for years to come.
But achievements like Alonso’s, which were once more common, are now a once-in-a-generation phenomenon. Perhaps in time he will herald the changing of the guard, but for now there are few Alonso equivalents to choose from.
When United appointed Ten Hag from Ajax in the summer of 2022, it seemed like a bold move, a reward for his enterprising style which had won three Eredivisie titles in four years and led Ajax to the semi-finals of the Champions League. But his struggles to impose his style of play at Old Trafford could make other clubs think twice before appointing someone with a similar career in the future. Obviously, that hasn’t worried Liverpool, who are hoping Slot will do a better job in a similar leap from Dutch football.
At the moment, clubs are thinking of Ruben Amorim, close to winning his second Portuguese championship title with Sporting Lisbon in four seasons. In the past, Portugal has been an excellent platform to work in England. Chelsea turned to Porto to sign José Mourinho in 2004 and André Villas-Boas seven years later (in both cases, after success at European and domestic level). Apart from winning in Europe, there isn’t much more Amorim could have done at Sporting and yet it remains to be seen what job – if any – he gets this summer.
It is therefore no wonder that the risk-averse elite, believing that even the best young European managers are beneath them, choose to recycle names who have already proven themselves at this level. Conte won’t be out of work for long. Neither will Tuchel, once he leaves Bayern.
If you’ve already had success at a big club, you can at least expect a phone call. Because these teams are still in no rush to peer into the masses below them and take their chances.
(Top photos: Getty Images)